Arctic children-youth foundation launches online forum

The Arctic Children and Youth Foundation wants to hear what Nunavut youth think about the pressing issues that affect their lives — housing, suicide, abuse, mental health and education issues such as high drop out rates.

The foundation has started up the “Playing to Strength” online discussion forum, equipped with moderators to keep the discussions going by posting questions, comments and news items.

The forum’s motto: “Take part in your life, have a say in what you want.”

“It’s a place to go and try to put down information that they’d like to see [to] make a difference,” said Kylie Aglukark, executive director of the foundation.

“There needs to be more resources and centres to help fight addictions, as well to get the proper counseling to deal with the underlying issues that are the real problems,” one person wrote on the forum.

Another wrote in expressing frustration with the current education system in Nunavut, “we don’t treat the issues — we just ignore them and our kids suffer,” she said, referring to social promotion.

The forum went live in February, but moderators had to be trained to deal with the different topics.

After moderators were fully trained, the forum was officially “launched” in April.

There are five moderators, one in Inuvik, Iqaluit and Pangnirtung, and two in Ottawa.

So far, 450 northern youth have registered with the forum, which is laid out in English because “we deal with the entire Arctic, we deal with several of the other regions, which go all the way to the Yukon.”

However, that could be set to change, Aglukark said.

The hope is that the online forum will allow northern youth to discuss different issues they face in their respective regions.

The three-year project’s goal is to take the information from the youth and present it to Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and other Inuit organizations “to let them know what youth are saying.”

The online forum was chosen over using Facebook to connect with Nunavut’s young people because the youth want to be anonymous, Aglukark said.

That’s so that they can voice their opinions without using their real names, she said.

“Their minds are on technology,” she added.

The foundation is also holding contests where northern youth can win an iPad by registering with the forum.